Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Auschwitz Survivor Laments Holocaust Denier’s Run For Congress In Her District

Arthur Jones, a Republican candidate for Congress from Chicago. Image by YouTube

An Auschwitz survivor can’t believe a Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier, is running to represent her district in Congress, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Stasia Dorna was fourteen when she was transported to Auschwitz. She remembers the sour soup, the icy barracks and her friend who was badly beaten for sneaking a bite of potato.

Dorna was prisoner No. 27,276. Talking to the Tribune, she didn’t tear up when speaking of her separation from her mother, or her barefoot march through frozen fields, or the tiny balls of rotten bread she ate.

Between 1940 and 1945, 960,000 of 1,095,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz died, according to estimates used by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. More than 300,000 people of other groups also died, including Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and other nationalities.

Dorna tears up when she talks about the United States, however.

“It’s such a good country,” she says. “If I make it, with no education, no penny, everyone can make it.”

A few miles north, across Harlem Avenue, a man she doesn’t know wants to represent her in Congress.

Jones is the Republican nominee in the 3rd Congressional District. He is a Nazi sympathizer and Holocaust denier. He believes that the stories of torture and death of more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust are vastly exaggerated.

She didn’t say much when she learned that Jones, a man who believes the Holocaust was a hoax, is running for Congress. She has a concentration camp tattoo, No. 27,276, on her left elbow.

“It happened,” she says. “I was there.”

Contact Aisha Tahir at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aishatahir

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.